July 12 (Bloomberg) -- A GLG Partners unit delayed an
initial public offering of Russian coal miner Sibanthracite Plc,
citing market weakness and a lack of interest in mining stocks.

The company had insufficient investor demand on the last
day of the sale, said three people with knowledge of the
process. GLG Emerging Markets Growth Fund may consider selling
its stake in Sibanthracite off the market, one of the people
said, asking not to be named as the details aren’t yet public.

The fund, a unit of the U.K.’s GLG, had attempted to sell a
25 percent stake in the supplier of high-grade anthracite coal
at $7 to $9.50 per depositary receipt in London. Investors have
recoiled from mining stocks as prices for coal and other
commodities tumble amid weakening demand.

“The market isn’t favoring resource companies at the
moment due to low commodities prices,” George Buzhenitsa, an
analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Moscow, said today by telephone.
Buzhenitsa said he had still expected the deal to close because
he saw GLG as “less price-sensitive.”

Entrepreneur Dmitry Bosov’s Alltech Group, which controls
Sibanthracite, sold 25 percent of the coal producer to the GLG
Partners fund in early 2008. The fund decided it would offload
the stake after prices for steelmaking coal fell 55 percent
since January 2012.

Investor Sentiment

“Market conditions and investor sentiment towards the
global mining sector led to the decision to postpone,” the
company said in a statement. That outweighed “significant
interest and positive feedback,” it said.

Investor confidence in Russian stocks was also shaken by
the July 8 announcement from OAO Pharmstandard, the country’s
largest pharmaceutical company, that it was buying a Singapore-based company without disclosing why, two people said.
Pharmstandard lost more than a third of its value this week.

Sibanthracite’s IPO would have been the first by a Russian
company in the U.K. this year. Russian railroad-freight carrier
NTS Holding Plc postponed a London IPO of as much as $500
million in January, citing a poor market.

“It’s very hard to sell shares of such a company when its
product prices are expected to continue falling,” said Kirill
Bagachenko, who manages about $3 billion in Russian equities at
TKB BNP Paribas Investment Partners in St. Petersburg. “There’s
a drop in demand and an oversupply in the mining and coal
sectors.”